Extending The O-town Party Crucial In Revival

Orlando needs to lose its confining mouse ears. Nothing against Mickey. The Mouse brings in the tourists, and they pay a good chunk of the sales tax. But still, the natives are restless.

Particularly in a tourist mecca, this so-called world-class destination that shuts down at 2 a.m. Hey, O-town ain't the Big Apple. Orlando is more like a shriveling orange when it comes to night life.

Clubs in South Beach and throughout Miami-Dade County are open until 5 a.m. Fort Lauderdale, Daytona Beach, Tampa -- even Panama City -- serve alcoholic brews until 3 a.m. or later.

Orlando is family-friendly, no doubt about it, and on Disney property, it should stay that way. But the tens of thousands of upwardly mobile and childless 20- and 30-somethings who live in the Orlando area, and even the business people who come here and want to check out O-town's happenings, are left wanting. Even those of us 40-somethings grabbing the Miss Clairol bottles wouldn't mind a real night on the town in between touch-ups.

So what's the holdup?

Mayor Buddy Dyer laid out the plans and taxpayers' money for a vibrant downtown -- enticements for upscale condominiums, restaurants, nightclubs, a mega-movie theater. And, of course, he's talking up a real performing arts center. But plans to allow downtown clubs to close later fizzled after last fall's recommendations. Maybe after the coronation -- uh, sorry, I mean March's election -- the mayor can get moving.

It needs to happen. And not for all the clubs in the city and not in unincorporated Orange County. The point of later closing hours, such as 3 a.m. weekdays and 4 a.m. weekends, should be to complement downtown Orlando's revitalization. The Disney and Universal attractions already have done a fine job of sucking all the tourists from O-town's core with their own downtown-like clubs.

It's time the city grew up and went out on its own. Time to rock on.

When I wrote last week that downtown should offer more of an ethnic mix in its entertainment and later closing hours, I got the predictable criticism.

One racist's e-mail stated that having clubs offer Latin music and hip-hop or reggae would bring undesirables downtown. Nevermind that those "undesirables" are the backbone of the area's tourism, construction and service economy, as both a growing business class with mucho dinero to burn and a hard-working labor force. Besides, country-music joints have their own cop problems.

Hey, I'm not a divider. I'm a uniter. (That's what salsa's all about, baby!) And what everybody should want is a vibrant and a safe downtown. When the city let bars close at 3 a.m. on New Year's Eve, the world as we know it did not end.

The City Council can make sure that safety remains the priority in later closing hours. Make the club owners pay for the stepped-up police presence needed to patrol traffic and keep drunks off the streets. Require the owners to post at least one off-duty cop at the door and another inside any club that wants to serve liquor for an extra hour or two. Let the bar owners, through a licensing fee of say, $5,000, cover the costs of cleaning up the streets after the partying is over.

Orlando can't claim to be a world-class city and keep granny hours. Let the mouse sleep. O-town should be hopping happy 24/7.